The bishop was then fain to know how it had come about
that he had forgathered there with Ciutazza.
Whereupon the young men related the whole story; which
ended, the bishop commended both the lady and the
young men not a little, for that they had taken condign
vengeance upon him without imbruing their hands in
the blood of a priest. The bishop caused him
to bewail his transgression forty days; but what with
his love, and the scornful requital which it had received,
he bewailed it more than forty and nine days, not
to mention that for a great while he could not shew
himself in the street but the boys would point the
finger at him and say:—“There goes
he that lay with Ciutazza.” Which was such
an affliction to him that he was like to go mad.
On this wise the worthy lady rid herself of the rector’s
vexatious importunity, and Ciutazza had a jolly night
and earned her shift.
(1) An augmentative form, with a suggestion of cagnazza,
bitch-like.
— Three young men pull down the breeches
of a judge from the Marches, while he is administering
justice on the bench. —
So ended Emilia her story; and when all had commended
the widow lady:—“’Tis now thy
turn to speak,” quoth the queen, fixing her gaze
upon Filostrato, who answered that he was ready, and
forthwith thus began:—Sweet my ladies,
by what I remember of that young man, to wit, Maso
del Saggio, whom Elisa named a while ago, I am prompted
to lay aside a story that I had meant to tell you,
and to tell you another, touching him and some of
his comrades, which, notwithstanding there are in it
certain words (albeit ’tis not unseemly) which
your modesty forbears to use, is yet so laughable
that I shall relate it.
As you all may well have heard, there come not seldom
to our city magistrates from the Marches, who for
the most part are men of a mean spirit, and in circumstances
so reduced and beggarly, that their whole life seems
to be but a petty-foggery; and by reason of this their
inbred sordidness and avarice they bring with them
judges and notaries that have rather the air of men
taken from the plough or the last than trained in
the schools of law.(1) Now one of these Marchers, being
come hither as Podesta, brought with him judges not
a few, and among them one that called himself Messer
Niccola da San Lepidio, and looked liker to a locksmith
than aught else. However, this fellow was assigned
with the rest of the judges to hear criminal causes.
And as folk will often go to the court, though they
have no concern whatever there, it so befell that
Maso del Saggio went thither one morning in quest of
one of his friends, and there chancing to set eyes
on this Messer Niccola, where he sate, deemed him
a fowl of no common feather, and surveyed him from
head to foot, observing that the vair which he wore
on his head was all begrimed, that he carried an ink-horn
at his girdle, that his gown was longer than his robe,
